A Swiftly Tilting Planet
by last-one-picked
Summary: Jack must confront his worst fears in a desperate race to save Carter... and the world. Action! Time travel! Romance! Drama! Please R&R!
1. Prologue: Silent Nights

A Swiftly Tilting Planet 

By last-one-picked

**Setting**: Middle of season five-ish. AU.

**Pairings**: S/J, of course.

**Rating: T, **just in case

**Notes**: This is my first fic I've actually had the nerve to post, so please R&R! This is looking to be a long and complex one, but it'll be worth it. Oh, and my Latin is a little rusty, so forgive me if I manage to completely butcher that language.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Stargate or any of its characters; I've just borrowed them for a while. Of course, if Daniel wanted to stay around a little longer, I certainly wouldn't mind… The title of this story is shamelessly borrowed from a Madeline L'Engle novel of the same name, which I've never read. All other characters and events are mine.

PROLOGUE 

"I've known death in a lot of forms—I've held it at arm's length, courted it, slept in it, and ran from it, but never have thought I'd succumb to it like this. To think, all these years we've risked everything to save Earth, and we're still too stupid to save it from each other." Daniel's words ominously accent the still night. The whole city below us seems bathed in the same paralyzing stillness as our forest—a certain type of quiet horror, the feeling of falling during a dream but being completely unable to scream.

The only light is the vacant moonlight; most residents have fled Colorado Springs, and the few who remain traverse the streets without headlights, as all forms of electrical illumination have been banned for several days. I look out and see Israel, Bethlehem, a nation starved for hope. But this time, all the hopes and fears that converge in the taciturn, emotionless sky will not be satisfied. This time there will be no rescues or third act revivals. This time it all will end.

By tomorrow this will all be gone.

"Tomorrow…" I can't help but whisper.

With a groan, Daniel lowers himself onto the ground and retrieves something from the inside of his coat pocket. "This may well be the last bottle of Schnapps in the entire county."

"Since when do you drink?" I join him on the ground and take a swig from the bottle. It burns my throat pleasantly.

"Since I realized that the planet is teetering on the verge of annihilation and there's nothing we can do about it. Besides, since the heaters went out… well, I'm not gonna spend my last night on Earth freezing."

The cynicism in his voice surprises me—after all, Danny Boy is still a dweeb, with disheveled hair and an unfailingly naïve attitude-- until I remember that this is the guy who makes it a habit to have at least one perceived death a year. He's probably had a lot of time to think about the end; he's put everything in order in his head. He's resigned. I realize that I haven't. I take another drink.

"Where'd you get this, by the way?" I ask.

"The party."

"So now not only are you drinking, but you're stealing too?"

"It's Christmas, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Christmas Eve."

When silent nights were supposed to be salvation, not condemnation. When children were supposed to dream about sugarplums, not enemy bombs.

Christmas.

The last Christmas.

"I… I can toast to that."


	2. Convergence

A Swiftly Tilting Planet Chapter One 

The only thing I ever remember about Air Force balls—those resplendent, gag-worthy snore-fests that I only attend because my rank compels me to—is her. The first year I didn't know her very well, but she wore red and spent most of the night with a physical therapist from the Academy; I tried to ignore the vague resentment that clouded my eyes whenever I looked at them. The next year she had the flu and begged out of it, and the next she wore a blue low-cut number with diamond earrings—"From a friend," she remarked with a mischievous smile. I spent the rest of the evening trying to drown my jealously in champagne.

Then there was last year. The last Air Force ball I could spend savoring her from afar, watching her svelte form glide across the dance floor with men who, unknowingly, were far luckier than I would ever be.

_Your life is quickly becoming a list of "lasts," O'Neill_, I chide myself.

A year, give or take a few days, before Daniel and I stood atop Cheyenne Mountain watching the demise of Colorado Springs, we had been somehow compelled to attend the annual officer's Christmas ball. The general mundane parade of proud officers and their eye-candy waves droned merrily along. This time she was wearing black, long, flowing, and airy, so that as she walked towards me I could occasionally see the outline of a leg or the curve of a breast. Yes, these parties were painful to me in more than one way.

So we—Carter, Daniel, and I (somehow Teal'c always managed to escape)-- did our best to avoid the inane chitchat and pleasantries that come with these shindigs. Somehow, when you've saved the world from utter annihilation a few times, social propriety doesn't seem so important; we had earned our right to be anti-social.

"Colonel, Major, Dr. Jackson," said Hammond as he joined our little circle. "I see all of your annual kicking and screaming did you no good."

"What are you talking about General?" I quipped. "There's nothing I love more than spending my Saturday nights with stuffy old generals and their equally entertaining speeches—present company excluded, of course."

"Of course," George replied with a grin.

"As opposed to all the other fascinating things you normally do on Saturday nights," Carter mumbled. She added a "sir" quickly and took a sip of her champagne.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Also, people here." I paused and glanced around for effect. "Always assume I'm so much smarter than I really am."

Carter gave a short laugh and opened her mouth to speak. And then--

And then she was gone.

Something rustles in the bushes behind us.

"Oh, sirs, there you are," says Siler as he emerges from the milky darkness. "General Hammond has requested your presence. The President is about to arrive. He wants a word."

"If Hammond thinks I'm gonna waste my time with that sissy-ass, sonuva—"

Daniel cuts me off with, "We're coming."

We follow Siler and climb down one of the emergency portals back into the bowels of the mountain. Technically, the long, vertical ladder corridors are only supposed to be used in dire circumstances, but I've never been one for technicalities like that.

The base is taut. Worried faces speak of too many hours on the phone, too many nights without family members, too many bad cups of coffee. It's rumored that Cheyenne Mountain will be the first of Aliki's targets should the worst happen.

"Don't they know that Aliki has nothing to gain by bombing us?" Janet had asked a week ago. In the melee of the evacuation, her car had been stolen, and I had made the perilous journey through the chaotic city to retrieve her. She hadn't left the base since. "Cheyenne Mountain is designed to withstand a nuclear attack. It's one of the safest locations on Earth right now."

"Aliki's nuts. He'd kill everyone in the city just to make a point."

"Yeah, I guess if I was one of these people with three kids and a dog and minivan, I'd send them out of town too. If Cassie was still…" Her voice caught, and we didn't speak for the rest of the trip. Cassie's fate, like that of Teal'c, was better left unsaid, if just to escape its terrible implications.

When we enter the briefing room, he's already there, flanked by a typical assortment of advisors, lackeys, and Secret Service.

"There's no need to salute, Colonel," he remarks dryly, seeing me remain defiantly stationary in his presence. "I understand that you've all had a rough time lately." His skin is leathery and tan, his blond hair quickly fading to a salt-and-pepper collage, his suit tidy and expensive. There's something about his Beach Boy appearance that revolts me.

"Yeah, trying to fix _your _mistakes certainly is a hard day's work."

"Colonel! Despite our differences in foreign policy, I am still your Commander-in-Chief."

"And I still don't give a damn! You see that?" I gesture wildly out the window to the large, empty space formerly occupied by the Gate. "That, despite all of your self-righteous babbling, isn't the cause of all this. We could have taken Aliki if you hadn't caved into all of his demands!"

"Aliki is far more technically advanced than us. When he called us on the Stargate Program, it was either disclose everything to him or let him take it by force. I couldn't risk the lives of the entire country to maintain some lofty principle of never bowing to terrorist pressure."

"So you gave him the Gate, and all of our alien technology, all of our files and gate addresses?" Daniel adds, leaning towards him, eyes blazing, hair unkempt, arms gesturing wildly . "You handed a madman the keys to the universe."

"Not to mention Teal'c and Cassandra Fraiser," I continue.

Throughout our confrontation with the POTUS, George remains silent, allowing us to trade volleys back and forth. Like always, he's in his dress blues and looks alert, like a bald bulldog ready to pounce. Despite his short and stocky stature, he always had a proud presence. It was this dignified courage that enabled him to run the program so smoothly. Recent events have taken their toll; lines on his face seem more pronounced and he appears…. _short_.

When President Jance suffered a fatal heart attack nearly a year ago, Ethan Carver—your typical politician, schmarmy, Harvard-educated, better at making pancakes and kissing babies than actually doing something useful—gained control of the west wing. Jance had been Hammond's closest ally, but Carver was far less magnanimous with the general. He never approved of the Stargate Program, and his first act of office was to severely curb our activities. When, in March, Aliki announced he knew of the Gate and demanded control of the entire program, Carver was more than willing to comply. Hammond had tried to talk some sense into him, but Carver was adamant: the Stargate had nearly led us to death a thousand times before, and it was doing it again. This time, we could easily pacify the threat.

"About Teal'c and Cassandra Fraiser… you know we tried our best not to give into that demand."

Once Washington had turned over the Stargate to Aliki, they signed a treaty saying there would be no further hostilities as long as Aliki possessed all "artifacts, information, and technology gained from or directly related to the Stargate Program." Once he found out, however, that two aliens were living in the United States, he demanded they be delivered to him. In a surprising display of backbone, Washington refused. The two countries argued for a while until Aliki decided to state who was really in charge of the situation. His already bloated Iran, having recently overtaken nearby Iraq and Syria, bombed a US army base in Saudi Arabia. The point was made, and Cassie and Teal'c were ordered to be extradited to Iran.

"Of course, you made it a lot harder on yourselves," Carver remarked thoughtfully.

"You didn't really think that we were just going to let you have them, did you?"

"Cassandra made an admirable attempt to escape into South America, but we caught her in Belize. She also did a good job of hiding your involvement in it."

That had been in July. We hadn't heard from her since.

"You have no evidence to prove that," barked Hammond.

"No, of course not; if we did, you would all be in prison." Carver smirks, and I resist the urge to shove his head further up his ass. "Of course, the last time we saw Teal'c we were chasing him through a high-security complex. The building he was in exploded. No one could have survived that. Aliki wasn't too happy to hear that he had died."

"What high-security facility was this?" Hammond asks for the gazillionth time. Details on Teal'c's demise were few: he had successfully been on the lam for a few months, fueled by credit cards and forged ID papers, when, for some reason, the dénouement of his journey came at some top-secret military base. Everyone refused to tell us where or why, despite our best efforts.

Carver smiles again, displaying two rows of too-sparkly, too-white teeth. I glance around at his entourage, wondering how they could survive being around the man 24/7. "Classified."

"Mr. President, I'm assuming you didn't ask us to be here to have this lively little debate," Daniel says.

For the first time that day, Carver looses his self-satisfied aura and gains one of grave reflection. "I've come here, quite reluctantly, for your help. Trust me, Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson, when I say that this truly is a last resort. I ask that you at least hear me out; not for my sake, but for everyone else on the planet.

"As you know, Aliki seized control of Iran in a military coup about 18 months ago. To be quite honest, at first we thought he was just another insane Islamic fundamentalist dictator to add to our list of thorns in our side. Then he told the state department that he knew of the Stargate's existence; naturally, we said we had no idea what he was talking about, hoping he wouldn't call our bluff. The rest is history: he announced to the international community at the United Nations that we had been concealing the existence of aliens from them for years. Outrage followed.

"At the same time, our operatives inside Iran learned that Aliki had somehow developed new weapons technology that was vastly beyond our own capabilities. We had no idea how they got these missiles—we only knew that they could quickly overcome ours. Iran was our own Gould, except more powerful and right next door. We knew that in the case of war, we would lose.

"Iran knew this too, so we acquiesced to all their demands: the Gate, Teal'c and Cassandra Fraiser, evacuating all of our foreign military bases, practically handing over Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to them. They asked and asked and we gave and gave until we couldn't give them what they wanted."

"That brings us to today…" Daniel whispers absently. The entire room is subdued into deep though. Nothing stirs.

"Yes. As you all know, for a few months there was a slight détente between us and Iran. They had everything they demanded, and we weren't yet engaged in a full out war. Then last week Aliki called me directly and issued his final request."

It had come at this year's Air Force Christmas Ball, the first one without Carter. Although it was held to try to normalize the tense situation and instill some shred of holiday cheer in a weary military population, it still felt awkward and strained. We had been there when the call came. Aliki wanted something else, something we couldn't deliver. Daniel and I had rushed back to Cheyenne Mountain. Although we had nothing to do—what's an SG team to do with no Stargate?—we remained on base as the crisis intensified. Daniel is still wearing his suit, with his pilfered bottle of Schnapps tucked neatly inside his jacket.

"Despite our protestations that Major Carter had mysteriously disappeared a year ago, Aliki demanded her presence, belligerently saying that she was here on earth."

"But she's not!" exclaims Daniel. "She… vanished last year. No one knows what happened to her."

"I know that, but Aliki didn't believe me. He threatened to bomb us; we begged him not to. Our intel indicates that he intends to launch an offensive against us possibly tomorrow. There seemed no hope for the situation when, this morning, the White House switchboard received a call in ancient Gould. We need you to translate it, Dr. Jackson. We can't get a hold of any of the other archaeologists from the SGC."

"Sure," agrees Daniel, his contempt for Carver giving way to scholarly interest. One of the president's aids hands him a cassette player. Daniel presses play and we all listen to the choppy barks of Gould. Then he plays it again, and begins to translate.

_Daniel Jackson and Jack O'Neill must be at the following coordinates at 2200 hours Mountain Time December 23. Use the _tempus flectere_ only as needed. Compliance with these instructions is imperative. Not complying will aid Aliki and result in the death of Major Carter. 77 degrees 51 minutes S, 166 degrees 45 minutes E._

Silence occupies the room. I try to stifle the thoughts boiling in my head. _She's alive, she's alive, she's alive… _I don't let myself even being to hope.

"What is this _tempus flectere_?" Hammond asks.

"And how does this caller expect us to travel through time?" adds Carver.

"Roughly translated, _tempus flectere_ means to "twist time" in Latin. And I have no idea, although we have done it before," Daniel replies.

"This _tempus flectere_—its an artifact. A few archaeologists found it several months ago at a dig Area 51 bought it off of them, as it was very similar to a project they were working on.," says one of Carver's faceless aids.

"Where was this dig?" demands Daniel.

"What kind of project?" I ask.

"Classified."

"But you have it?" Daniel says.

"Yes. Its at Area 51."

"Airman, find out where those coordinates are located," Hammond orders the SF stationed at the briefing room door.

"What did your scientists discover about this artifact?"

"Nothing, other than it has a vague Latin inscription on it: _Quiamque tenet tempum tenet orbis_ _terrarum_."

"_Whoever controls time controls the whole world…"_ Daniel's voice fades dramatically into a meager whisper.

"Sir," reports the SF, "those coordinates are right next to the McMurdo research station in Antarctica."  
"McMurdo? Antarctica? We've been there before." I can't help but exclaim.

"Seems like an awfully big coincidence," murmurs Daniel.

"So Mr. President, what would you like us to do?" Hammond is weary. It echoes in his flat tone. He has almost surrendered to the deep night. Almost.

"I want you two to meet with whoever this is, see what they know, see if you can find Major Carter."

"Of course, that would require going _back in time_." Hammond protests.

"Sir, the inscription on the artifact at Area 51 leads me to believe that it might have something to do with time travel. If we could harness its power—"

I'm sick of the enthusiasm in Daniel's voice. "Carver, do you seriously expect me to go on some wild goose chase to find a member of my team only to turn her over to _you_ so you could trade her to Aliki?"

"Colonel, I understand you're still upset that I wouldn't allow you to conduct an intensive search for Major Carter after her disappearance last year, but we both know there's more at stake here than your pride."

"Jack," Daniel mumbles, "this could be our only chance to find Sam. If we can—"

"I know, Daniel, I know."  
"Not to mention the message said that if we did not comply we would be aiding Aliki…" Hammond offers.

A thousand thoughts trample one another as they race through my mind. The alternative is to wait around in this dismal concrete bunker, expecting the wild heat and insidious aftershock of a nuclear attack. _You're safer here then anywhere else, O'Neill_… then I think of her, alive, waiting for our help. I think of Teal'c, who died for his freedom. Cassie, a child betrayed by the world she sought refuge in. Hammond, who broke so many rules to give us the chance to explore through the Gate. And me, who had the misery of watching everything he loved, collapse.

"Fine, we'll do it Carver. But know that you've brought this upon yourself."

"Your objections have been noted Colonel."

"And I'm not doing this for you. Its not my job to fix your mistakes. I'm doing this for my team. They shouldn't have to suffer because of you. And if somehow we survive the attack tomorrow, I intend to make sure that your name goes down in the history books as the bastard who almost led us to nuclear war."

Carver's smug smirk returns. "And you're gonna go down as the valiant hero who saved us all."

"No, I don't want any of that. I just want to save my team and live freely without paying for your politics."

Hammond surveys us—a look of admiration, of regret, of goodbye. "I'll arrange for your transportation to Area 51 immediately. Good luck gentlemen. Get packing."

Whew, tired now. So there it is. Give reviews and I'll give more chapters.


	3. Wishes

**A Swiftly Tilting Planet**

Part Three: Wishes

We stood with our mouths hanging stupidly open, our eyes wide. We glanced around. No one else had noticed her abrupt disappearance. There was little fanfare about it; one minute she was about to speak, the next there was a slight flash of light, then she was no longer there. It was as if she never had been. For a moment I wondered if she had.

"Did she just—" Daniel asked me.

"Yes."

"There was just—"

"The Asgard?"

"Maybe."

"The Tok'ra."

"I don't know."

"Perhaps we should find out."

"Perhaps."

We inspected the premises, scoured under every rock, in every dark corner, behind every shadow. And still nothing. After a few days, the truth was revealed: Samantha Carter was no where on Earth. Every search yielded nothing. The Asgard denied any involvement in the matter. The Tok'ra were just as dumbfounded as us. I wondered the base halls late at night, avoiding my empty house and empty life and the questions that lingered like the smell of her perfume. I allowed myself to peak into her lab once a day—to do so more would somehow cheapen that sacred place. When I thought no one was looking, I would gently shut the door behind me and run my fingers along her desk chair. Countless times I had listened to her explain her doohickeys at a dizzying pace. Of course, I never understood a word she was saying, but I could listen to her voice. The one that spoke to me in tortured dreams, begging me to find her.

Every so often I would take a break from my own misery and wonder what she would have felt. One moment, about to make a joke, the next whirring through deep space. I wondered what her thoughts would have been as she landed aboard some distant alien ship or planet. At least we hoped it was a transportation device; there was no way of knowing if that slight beam of light hadn't been a weapon. Wherever she was, I vaguely hoped she wasn't cold. I never let myself think that she wasn't still alive. I couldn't.

It was when I thought about her, suddenly finding herself lost somewhere definitely not the ballroom of the Antler's Hotel, in that slinky black dress, with a song in her eyes and a champagne glass in her right hand, I was at my lowest.

Our jet slicing through the deep sky was one of the only planes carrying passengers in the country. It was a sleek vessel, made for escorting high-profile government officials and diplomats around the western United States. I sat on one of the plush leather coaches and watched us push through thick clouds.

Hammond had got the plane geared up remarkably fast, and minutes after we arrived at Peterson we were up in the air. "Did Carver's people ever give you any more information on this artifact?" Janet asks as she takes a seat beside me.

I didn't want her to come along. After out meeting with the president, she ran after me, her footsteps echoing down the concrete hall. "Colonel!" she cried. "Colonel, I want to go with you."

"Dr. Fraiser, we have no idea what we're getting into. This could be highly dangerous or just a big waste of time."

"More dangerous than waiting around here for a nuclear attack?"

"If Aliki does attack, than you're going to be needed here."

"From what I hear, if Aliki's as powerful as everyone's making him out to be, there's not gonna be anyone for me to save." Abruptly, she tightly grabbed my arm. Although she stood at least a head shorter than me, I knew better than to take her lightly. "Look, Jack, I know the reason you went through the Gate to begin with; it was a suicide mission to Abydos. Your son had just died. You just wanted to escape that.

"They took Cassie from me. They took her for no good reason. I can't just stand here and do nothing. Besides… I may be able to do something to resolve this situation. Wouldn't you have given anything to do the same with Charlie?"  
I thought for a moment, but I already knew she won. "What does Hammond say?"

"He's fine with it if you are."

That had brought us here. Daniel set across the jet from us, with a book on his lab about… something. No matter how long I knew him, I could never figure out exactly what he was doing.

"No," I reply to Fraiser. "Not even a picture of this thing. Just what I told you. They say they don't know much more."  
"I guess Area 51 isn't known for its loquacity," she remarks. "Any luck Daniel?"

"Err, no. I'm hoping to know more once we get there. This whole thing sounds nuts to me. I wonder who would've called the White House switchboard in Gould? Literally, no one on Earth except me, a few other base scientists, and—no one knows how to speak Gould that fluently."

"Are you suggesting we may be dealing with an _alien_ here on Earth?"

"Stranger things have happened to us every week," I mumble.

"We're approaching Groom Lake sirs, ma'am," announces the pilot from the cockpit. "We'll be landing shortly."

Janet is dressed in her civvies, and Daniel has finally changed into a pair of BDUs. I wear a pair of jeans and a jacket, with a handgun tucked securely in my bag. None of us knows what to expect.

A hot desert wind whips through the air as we descend onto Groom Lake, the dry alkali lakebed into which several of the bases' runways. At the southwest corner of the lake is the base. The usually top-secret installation has adopted an even grimmer mood; no electric lights penetrate the suffocating witching hour sky. The headlights of the humvee we ride in are blue, so they cannot be seen from enemy bombers. As we approach the main facility, signs warning against cameras and informing us that lethal force is legal here hover on top of chain link fences. I know that along the perimeter of the base airmen with machine guns guard against intruders. Our guide—a reluctant-looking Captain Something tells us that most of the crew have either gone home or taken cover in a nearby underground nuclear shelter.

"So the president sent you here?" he asks. "Is it true that he's gonna ride this thing out at Cheyenne Mountain?"

"Yes. His entire cabinet is there."

"Ironic, isn't it, that everything comes back to that mountain? Oh, and that Stargate. This is all happening because of that."  
"Airman," snaps Janet as we descend several floors in a large cargo elevator. The base—which, like Cheyenne Mountain, is mostly a labyrinth of concrete corridors and large labs—is lit only by auxiliary green lighting, giving it an eerie, suitably extraterrestrial feel. We don't see anyone else the entire time we're there. "I would think that someone in your position, at _this_ base working on such sensitive and complex affairs, would recognize that its whoever told Aliki about the Stargate program's fault. We at the SGC did nothing to bring this upon ourselves."

"Yes ma'am, my apologies," he says in a much stiffer voice than before. "Dr. Hartford—she's the head of the archaeology department here—has the artifact in her lab. It's just inside this door, on the table to the right. I don't have the security clearance to see it, so I'll wait right here."

We enter the lab and tentatively flick on the light. Compared to the labs at the SGC, the room is surprisingly clean. No files, stray artifacts, not even a potted plant. The captain had told us that all sensitive information—practically everything—had been destroyed over the past few days. If Aliki does bomb or invade, the base will self-destruct. It's strange to think that we may be the last people ever to stand in this room. Then I realize I may have left the SGC for the final time.

I gulp.

The only thing in the room besides some non-descript furniture is a small orb, the size of a tennis ball, made of a deep onyx color. Tentatively Daniel picks it up.

"That's it?" cries Janet.

"It would appear so…" he mumbles, submerged in thought. He runs his finger over a raised portion of the stone. "_Quiamque tenet tempum tenet orbis_ _terrarum_," he repeats.

"Lets say this is some kind of time travel device," Fraiser speculates. "Then we need to back to 2200 hours yesterday—no, two days ago. It's well past midnight now. Merry Christmas everyone.

"We need to get it to work."

"I-I have no idea how. It just looks like a round—rock."

"Well, would you mind figuring out Daniel?" This is not how I envisioned spending my Christmas. My blood turns to ice as I realize that Iranian missiles could be flying above America as we speak. "The fate of the world is kind of at stake."

"I know Jack, I just… Area 51 probably has performed every test we know on it and they still haven't figured it out."

"Maybe then we should try something a little more elementary." Thinking of Carter—her smile before she became nothing but thin air—I snatch the ball away from him and slam it against a wall. Janet screeches my name then falls silent.

The orb splits in two perfectly equal halves, connected only by an hourglass like figure in the center. "That was it?" I cry in shock. "Throwing it at a wall?"  
"Maybe it knows to open up when it's really needed," suggests Janet.

"There's an inscription on the hourglass." Daniel takes it from me and inspects it. "Latin again: _The world is his who wants it_."

"It knew that we wanted it to open," whispers Janet. "This is incredible. This is beyond science. How could this—"

"Shh. Everybody think of those coordinates, of 2200 hours on December 23," Daniel commands.

I don't know if I close my eyes or if all just goes dark. When the light doesn't return; there's only the ferocious scream of a brutal wind.

And it's cold.

A voice manages to overcome the whirling gusts. "Good! I was getting worried. Its about time you all showed up."

Please, por favor, leave reviews! It's so annoying to have 200 hits and 0 reviews. Lavish praise, constructive criticism, I want it all! Thanks for reading.


	4. Threads

A Swiftly Tilting Planet Part Four: Threads 

A/N: Sorry this latest chapter took so long; band camp does not give one a lot of time for fanfics, unfortunately. School starts next week, but I'll try my best to continue. Thanks for reading!

"_Ding dong, campers, the witch is dead!" Jack O'Neill announced upon entering the mess hall. Daniel and Carter looked up from their respective bowls of cereal. He triumphantly slapped that morning's edition of _The New York Times_ before them._

"_My God," whispered Carter in utter disbelief. "Tax evasion? They got him on tax evasion?"_

"_I somehow suspect they'll bring him up on more charges, especially since the writer of this article will be getting an anonymous tip that Senator Kinsey has been aiding and abetting several known criminals." O'Neill couldn't stop myself from smiling. There, on the front page of the most respected newspaper in the world, Robert Kinsey, haughty and dignified till the end, being led away from his lavish home in handcuffs. _

"_You didn't disclose classified information about the Stargate program to a civilian, did you?"_

"_Of course not Major. I simply emailed her and told her that the good senator has been funneling resources to several ex-NID currently wanted by the law. I got the info a few months ago when Maybourne and I visited him at home—ya know, when Hammond was blackmailed into stepping down from the SGC? I had been saving it for a good moment… and now definitely seemed like a good moment."_

_They visibly did not share in O'Neill's near-giddiness. "What?" he snapped. "Kinsey was an enemy of all of us."_

"_I know, but this whole thing will just have people looking more at Kinsey—and maybe even his connections to us. Besides, who knows what kind of trouble you'll get in for giving that reporter that information."_

"_Well, I hope you're wrong Daniel. Kinsey's arrest can only mean good things. _Good things_." _

Janet is the first one to speak. Although I can only see the vague outline of her shivering figure, from her voice I can tell she's about to throw up. "You… shot… yourself months ago. You're dead. You couldn't handle the disgrace of being arrested and thrown in prison."

Kinsey's voice shines happily. "I'm glad you believed that Dr.—er, Fraiser is it? Its good to know that such an elaborate ploy worked so well."

"KINSEY!" I roar. "And just when I thought this day couldn't get any worse. You better be a ghost, or I swear to God…"

"I assure you Colonel O'Neill, I am not."

"Well then maybe I'll just shoot you now and make up for lost time."

"Colonel, do you really think I would have called you down to this God-forsaken piece of ice if I wanted to banter with you? There are more important things at stake."

"You better have one hell of a story, Kinsey," barks Janet. Daniel is still too stunned—or perhaps he's angry, having the strange knowledge of what's about to happen—to speak.

"Oh, I do have quite an incredible narrative, even by your standards. Its not one I'm proud of though, just like I'm not proud to be here. Know that I speak to you as a much humbler man, a much different man.

"But the weather here is not conducive to our discussion. Let's go somewhere more comfortable, shall we?"

Half a second later we're in what appears to be the bridge of a small Gould cargo ship. Familiar gold hieroglyphs decorate the walls, and through the front window we see an inky black sky speckled with golden stars; in the lower left hand corner is the outline of Earth. "I'm sorry to drag you all out here. Antarctica is one of the few places left on the planet that isn't being watched round-the-clock. We wouldn't want to be detected."

"Detected by whom?" Daniel asks.

For the first time I notice his haggard appearance. He's no longer the imposing statesmen we all knew and despised; in fact, if I passed him on the street, I wouldn't think he was anything other than a sad old man.

"Who does this ship belong to?" I ask. "That beam technology doesn't look run-of-the-mill Gould."

"Its Gould, yes, but unlike anything the system lords have developed."

"That's the same kind of beam that was used to abduct Sam, isn't it?"

Daniel's words fall in the chamber with a thud. Instinctively I reach for my bag, in which is my gun. I imagine him being the first thing she saw as she was beamed away from the party; I hear her screams echo through the room.

Kinsey begins with a sigh. "I have served many masters in my life. I've only come to realize that now, however; I always thought that I was serving God, advancing His divine purpose. I suppose for a while I was; then, however, I succumbed to my power and status and ended up working towards my own selfish goals.

"To be honest, I didn't even realize that I was evading taxes; I don't know how that happened, although I'm not denying it. I know that in my position I easily could have escaped the charges unscathed; however, the information you leaked—yes, Jack, I know it was you, for only you and NID members had that info, and they wouldn't be stupid enough to tell anyone about it—was damning. There was no way I would ever leave that prison. I was going to end my career of public service in utter disgrace.

"One part of this story you don't know is that several months before my arrest I was diagnosed with inoperable stomach cancer. I had so little time that I probably wouldn't even have seen the end of my own trial. If I had been serving God—well, if I had been truly following the Lord, I wouldn't have been in that position to begin with—I would have accepted my fate. But I couldn't let myself be remembered as the fallen statesmen who died after publicly disgracing himself.

"So when a man—he never fully gave me his name, credentials, or position, and in my humiliated state I never asked—offered me a chance to not only leave prison but cure my cancer and have me immortalized as the great public servant I thought I was, I jumped at it. He said the current state of affairs—again, no specifics—forced us to conduct this marvelous enterprise somewhat secretly. In a matter of days I was out of jail; somehow, my mysterious benefactor had pulled some strings, bought off the right people, and made it look like I had killed myself out of shame.

"I was told that until things "settled down," I would have to go into hiding. A few days later I learned the awful truth. Without forewarning I was beamed aboard this ship. My release from prison had been orchestrated by a Gould named Pluto."  
"Pluto," murmurs Daniel. "The Roman god of the underworld. He's not a system lord, is he?"

"No. In fact, you won't find mention of him anywhere. Thousands of years ago, when Ra still ruled Earth, Pluto emerged as a major threat. He committed crimes even the other Gould found ghastly: he destroyed entire armies in a single battle, wiped out whole solar systems to fit his needs. He had cultivated technology that far surpassed the other Goulds. After conquering many, many worlds, he set his sights on Earth. Remarkably, Ra killed him and absorbed most of his army. Since Pluto was such a heinous leader, most of his men followed him out of fear instead of love; still, after his defeat, a few loyal followers remained. Unbeknownst to Ra, they revived him using a sarcophagus and buried him in a tomb in Egypt, knowing that someday their master would rise again.

"Much like Hathor, he was discovered by several innocent archaeologists a few years ago. Unlike Hathor, however, he realized that times have changed and the Gould are no longer regarded as Gods on this planet. Slowly, using violence and coercion, he built up his influence, always on the lookout for a chance to regain his power. He found that chance in a radical Islamic fundamentalist named Aliki. Pluto offered Aliki advanced weapon technology to muscle his way onto the international stage. The alliance from hell was forged."

"And then you told them," says Janet stiffly. "They're the ones who sought you out. The sarcophagus cured your cancer."  
"To my everlasting shame, yes. Pluto knew he needed to find the Stargate, and someone during his search must have led him to me. I disclosed everything I knew about the program. The rest is history."

"What about Carter?" I say the words before I even realize it. Immediately I regret the softness in my voice. "Where does she come in?"  
"Since you are all here, I'm assuming you figured out how to use the _tempus_ _flectere_."

"We didn't really do anything to figure it out," answers Daniel. "It just kinda… happened."

"There are two parts of the _tempus flectere_, both identical in appearance, both capable of manipulating space and time, both made by the Ancients and both hidden separately on Earth. Pluto knew about them before he died; in fact, my theory is that's why he came to Earth in the first place—to find them. Anyone who could manipulate them would have tremendous power. After his resurrection, he found one of the tempus flecteres; from what I've heard, a few of your scientists stumbled upon the other one a little while ago too, although Pluto doesn't know that.

"Despite his best efforts, Pluto couldn't figure out how to work it. He asked me to pick someone who would be the most qualified to figure the device out. I chose Dr. Carter."

I attempt to swallow my fear as I ask, in one brief breath, "Is she alive?"

"We don't know. Two months ago she disappeared from Aliki's palace in Tehran. We assumed that she somehow used the tempus flectere to escape. In the ten months of her captivity, she never revealed how to use it; we didn't know if she even knew how to use it. Of course, we searched for her. Demanding her from you was an act of desperation. After all, where else would she go if not the SGC?"

"We haven't seen her in a year."

"Let's cut to the chase Kinsey: why did you bring us here?"

"Alike has lost control of the situation. Well, to be honest, he never had control of the situation. Pluto wants Carter and the secret to the tempus flectere. He is convinced that you are harboring her. If he can't have her, no one can. He will attack at dawn on Christmas day. I needed you to go back in time because we won't have enough time to stop him otherwise."

"You want to help us?"

"I know there's no redeeming my actions; I know that I have sold my soul and will never get it back. Still, this evil that I am serving must be stopped. I must witness the downfall of the gods I am serving or die trying."

We wait in incredulous silence. Kinsey's face floods with same.

"How can we trust you?" Daniel asks.

"You can't. But imagine the alternative."

"Fine," I mumble. "How do we save the world this time?"

"Do you have the tempus flectere?"

I still clutch it tightly in my hand. Reluctantly, I give it to him.

"Did you bring weapons?" he asks.

"Err, yes."

"Good."

There was a brief flash of light—another one of those awkward seconds of suspended reality—and once again we found ourselves somewhere distinctly different, this time staring down the barrel of a gun.

Please R&R, as always


	5. Secrets

**A Swiftly Tilting Planet**

Part Five: "Secrets" 

**Author's Note: Agh! Sorry I haven't posted in ages. Marching band, work, and AP classes doesn't give much time for fanficing… The next few chapters will be short, and I'll post them whenever I can. As always, thanks for reading!**

_The gun was easy for him to apprehend; the base checkpoint officer was a young recruit who was quickly subdued. The base was in a secluded cove on the Oregon coast. Most people considered it a relic of the Cold War Era, as it once was connected to housing spy planes that flew over the USSR. This was a reputation base officials were happy to foster; since most residents of the nearby communities thought the facility was nothing more than an old warehouse, they were free to continue their top-secret activities._

_From the entrance to the base a single paved road coiled through the wet, green West coast landscape, draped in darkness, to the main laboratory. The mint green building, croaking under the weight of age, was lightly guarded, and with one of the incapacitated sentry's keycards, entry was easily obtained._

_The dirty, dimly lit corridors were vacant. He had expected this; an installation like this one conducted business in the shadows. _

_He had been on the road for eight weeks, surviving off of credit cards, staying in cheap motels alongside highways, eating at mom and pop restauranst, trying to stay, as O'Neill would say, _under the radar_. He knew government agents were after him, and that it was inevitable that he would be caught; It was a long sojourn in solitude. The grain towers and roaming fields of middle America provided no comfort for him; instead, the peaceful Midwest merely served as evidence of the illusion that could be so easily shattered by Aliki's caprice. With everything hanging in the balance, he decided to make the most of his liberty._

_Through a series of conspiracy theory Internet chat rooms, he learned about the Oregon base, and set off to discover its deep secrets._

Aha_. Here it was, in a large storeroom, a suspiciously unmarked crate. Again, no guards. With a last look around, he pried the lid off of the crate._

_So the rumors are indeed true, he thought, surveying the box's contents. _

_Shocking him from his silence was the alarm of base security, a shrill blare and a rotating green light. He had known that he didn't have the technical expertise to disable the security system; he had counted on his own skills and stealth to at least temporarily avoid detection._

_For one of the first—and the last—times they had failed him. _

_It all ended here._

_It was almost comical, that he was going to die by the very people whom he was trying to save._

_Several SFs, armed with P39s and shouting for him to drop his weapon, stormed into the room. Of course, he didn't comply._

_The troops were easily subdued, but the echo of many boots rushing to his position filled the chamber. He prepared himself for his final stand._

_Before the base's forces reached the room, several figures abruptly appeared before him._

_"Teal'c!" cried O'Neill, his eyes wide. They danced between Teal'c's stoic expression and the revolver he had armed at the visitors. "Hey, T, why don't you put the gun down?"_

_"We are about to be overcome," Teal'c stated, not noticing the bewildered Fraiser, Daniel, and Kinsey. _

_Jack and company sprang into action. In an instant, courtesy of the fallen airmen, they were armed._

_"Senator Kinsey," Teal'c remarked. "Your presence here is most unexpected."_

_"I see your biting wit hasn't changed—" O'Neill began before stumbling over the open crate. "Holy Mother of—this looks Gould."  
A bottleneck of troops clogged the doorway. Bullets echoed through out the installation, and through the dim lighting one could barely discern the battling groups._

_As he took down an airman, Daniel glanced at the crate. There was no mistaking that the large, awkward device was a weapon, and of the same time period and craftsmanship of Kinsey's ship. Inside the crate was a piece of paper: CLASSIFIED—TO REMAIN UNTOUCHED BY ORDERS OF LT. COL. CHERYL HARTFORD, GROOM LAKE._

_Hartford, the scientist working on the tempus flectere at Area 51…_

_His thoughts were cut short by the savage tearing of flesh, hot metal seraing through soft skin, blood dyeing his BDUs, his body shattering like ice on the ground, and everything around him blurring, blending, and eventually going black._


	6. Errors in Judgment

**A Swiftly Tilting Planet**

**Part Six: "Errors in Judgment"**

Author's Note: I know nobody's reading this-- how many months as it been since I posted last—but I figure I'd write another chapter because I enjoy it and because its an excuse to postpone my AP Euro homework till… tomorrow.

_That last night they hadn't danced at all._

_As she lay dying, she could feel the pain of her injuries and the equally intense misery of her yearning for just a single dance._

_That would be her biggest regret._

_Her final thought._

_Vomit crept up and violated her throat. Blood coated her teeth. She could feel her body shutting down, her organs, one by one, resigning themselves to the inevitable. She returned to that night, with a clear sky, as a woman with a voice like a charcoal pencil sang, and his eyes met hers from across the dance floor._

"Daniel!" Fraiser screams as the archeologist's body hits the floor. She scrambles under the wave of bullets to his crumpled form.

We've managed to hold them off. Kinsey indicates another door—another exit from the bombarded storage room—and scampers through it, but not before ordering Teal'c to bring the crate with the Gould weapon.

I greedily eye the tempus flectere, which Kinsey holds loosely. It would be so easy to take it and get control, to go back to the moments prior to Sam's disappearance. "You can't Jack!" he snaps and slips it into a coat pocket. "We can't use it yet. We've got to destroy the base."

By now we've escaped into the second room, Teal'c with the crate, Fraiser with a bleeding and unconscious Daniel, and Kinsey his smarmy-ass smirk, while I provide cover fire. I was the last one in. As I pull the door shut, it locks automatically. I establish a defensive position.

Kinsey is sitting at a computer—we appear to be in an office—and types frenziedly.

"Why don't we just use your neato space ship to blow this place to hell?" I bark.

"C'mon, this may be a military intelligence base, but the Air Force isn't stupid. They can tell the difference between a seemingly accidental explosion and a blast from outer space." Abruptly he looks to Daniel. "How is he?"

"He took one to the left shoulder. It's not pretty, but he'll be fine. Not that these are the best conditions to treat a patient…"  
"Sorry Doctor, but I'm afraid we won't have time to stop by a drugstore any time soon. We definitely have more pressing matters to attend to." Kinsey has lodged a USB stick in to the computer. "What are you doing?" I ask him. From without, the SFs attempt to hack into the computerized locks on the doors. Briefly I wonder how I managed to lock them out…

"Don't be alarmed Jack, I've already gotten into the base's security procedures. All the doors have automatically sealed themselves. The only way anyone but us is getting in or out of this place is by using a helluva lot of C4, but hopefully we won't be around for that.

"Teal'c, do you have the weapon?"

"Yes."  
"How are you getting into the computer systems?" I inquire.

He gestures towards the USB stick. "One of the perks of being NID. With this I get automatic access to all NID facilities, among other things."

"Wait—that would mean that—"

"I'll explain later. Right now we've got to get outta here."

True to his word—a paradox regarding Kinsey, I think—in a matter of seconds, Teal'c Daniel, Fraiser, Kinsey, the big honkin' space gun, and I have evacuated from the dark, bullet-dinged base to the ship. There's a little reprieve, as we're no longer being shot at. Teal'c, as always, expressionless, even in the most trying of circumstances.

"T!" I exclaim, for once genuinely happy. I go to slap him on the back before thinking the better of it. "Where have you been? Carver's goons told us you died six months ago!"

"I do not understand O'Neill. I have only been, as you say, on the run, for two months since your government agree to hand over Cassandra Fraiser and myself to President Aliki."

"Wait, but its Dec—" Of course. The top secret base, the explosion, the tempus flectere. We're the reason everyone thinks Teal'c is dead. "Its only June, isn't it?"

"Yes O'Neill." He has a slightly bemused expression on his face; the man has always had the strangest sense of humor. "I assume you have engaged in time travel once again. The results of our previous entanglements in time travel have not been good; I thought that you would abstain in the future. Also, I believe Senator Kinsey was reported to be deceased. Your story promises to an interesting one, O'Neill."

Kinsey hovers over the crate, lustily eyeing its contents. Upon seeing him initially I can't help but think that he looks like a madman next to a coffin. "To think…" he mumbles. "To think it's been right here…"

"Ok Kinsey, I think you better talk," Janet commands dangerously. "We're not stupid. We know you know more than you'd like us to believe."

"Colonel, you and the NID are very similar in some ways: neither of you agreed with Carver's handling of Aliki. And, much like you, they decided to take matters into their own hands.

"Through their undoubtedly nefarious means, my former colleagues discovered that Pluto was behind Aliki's success. They decided not to tell Carver because they didn't want to give him another opportunity to do something stupid. Alas, sorry Jack, Carver isn't a traitor or a criminal. He may be an idiot, but he's _our_ 100 loyal American idiot. The NID knew that the situation between the United States and Iran would eventually erupt, and it'd be us against a four thousand-year-old alien warlord in a war we couldn't possibly win. So they began to investigate Gould weaponry. IN addition to trying to build their own Gould weapons based on secretly retained files from the SGC—all of which ended fruitlessly and often in very large, unintentional explosions—they invested heavily in civilian archaeological digs, hoping desperately that someone would fine some ancient Gould relic. The operation was centered around Groom Lake. I don't understand why you all look surprised—you must have realized that the NID's influence runs far deeper than is visible.

"Unbelievably, the NID got lucky. Two separate finds. One was the tempus flectere, and the others rest in this crate…"  
Daniel stirs. Over the course of Kinsey's story, Janet has bandaged him up nicely and now watches the narrator with unveiled disdain. Slowly, Daniel blinks, rubs his eyes, and comes to.

"Oh God," he mutters after trying to sit up. His hand goes to his wounded shoulder as Janet gently forces him back down. "What happened?"

"You got shot, but we're back aboard Kinsey's ship. And I'd tell you not to talk if I though you'd actually listen."

"Welcome back, Dr. Jackson. I'm sure you'll be interested in this part of the store," Kinsey continues, slightly annoyed. "In this crate are the contents of the second fine. Of course, most interesting to you Jack is the large weapon. Don't get too excited, though; Pluto has an arsenal of these. Inside the crate are several other boxes. Teal'c, if you wouldn't mind handing me that one, yes, that one right there… thank you." He revealed from inside the smaller box a gold, cylindrical tube, engraved in Gould, no more than a foot long. In his eyes flashes something far more sinister than any of his other personas—the cocky senator, the self-righteous traitor, the broken old man. Lust shines in his eyes. The force behind that look is powerful; I know because it's the same dark energy that propels me to look for Carter, to desire her return even more than I would otherwise want her body or company, to stop at nothing to find her. It's a passion that once unleashed is uncontrollable, and once satisfied causes its owner to go mad, because he has nothing left to strive for.

"This," he declares, "is more powerful than any weapon."

We sit in stupid anticipation, expecting him to elaborate. Instead he merely fingers the artifact hungrily.

"Well Sheharazad… are you going to tell us what it is?" I snap.

The zeal instantly drains from his face and voice. "It's the key to controlling the tempus flectere. I'm not sure how it works, but I think with a little ore study I could figure it out…

"We—mean Aliki, Pluto, and I. I was unaware of the NID's activities—have searched for this for a year. But it feels like forever."

"I still don't understand. What's the big deal?"

"If, up to this point, the tempus flectere has responded to some feelings—but obviously not all of them—then it is fundamentally unpredictable," Daniel suggests in a hoarse voice. Janet abandons her attempts to make him lie down and stop speaking. "But if this device could allow us to have control over the tempus flectere, then we could fully manipulate time and space, not to mention defeat Aliki and Pluto."

"Yes, yes, that's it exactly Dr. Jackson. Exactly."

There's a short silence before Fraiser abruptly asks, "Senator Kinsey, is there some kind of crew quarters on board?"

"Yes, through the passage behind you."

"I think Dr. Jackson needs to rest on something other than this dirty floor."

"Dr. Fraiser, really, I feel-"

She cuts him off. "Colonel, if you could help me move him over there."

We support Daniel as he walks weakly into the crew quarters and slowly reclines on one of the bunks. With the lights still off, Fraiser closes the door. After five years, our collective instincts have grown strong; I can immediately tell Janet is worried about something other than Daniel's health.

"Colonel, you're not gonna like what I'm going to say." She moves closer to the two of us. We crouch down together, like three kids trading secrets in whispers. "None of this makes sense. The tempus flectere—how is it that it worked so perfectly until now, when Kinsey decided he needed that device so badly? And what's with all this absurd time hoping—I mean, Antarctica on December 23, and now here in June? None of it fits together. And, how does Kinsey know all this? And if he knew all these specifics, like where that crate would be and when, then why didn't he just go get it?"  
"Janet, I think you're reading way too much into this—"

"No Jack, you're blind. You want to find her so badly that you're willing to ignore the indescrepencies because it gives you an opportunity to do something to find her. I know, Jack. I had some doubts about this from the beginning but I hoped" her voice breaks "I hoped this could somehow lead to Cassie, but Kinsey's lying about something, and it won't lead to anything good. Jack. Look at me. This road will not lead to Sam."

She had called me. In the dark, despite my attempts at blindness, I can see the truth. When I was seventeen I had mono for two months except for one week in the middle, when my symptoms mysteriously disappeared. When I was well for that brief time, I was high, I was invincible; it was euphoria, it was hope. But when the sore throat and tiredness returned… this is that crash. This is the truth, Janet's harsh words are the right, and they sink lower than I was before.

"Well what do we do now?" Daniel iterates the obvious question.

"Colonel O'Neill, if you wouldn't mind coming here. I think I've figured out how the device works," Kinsey calls from across the small ship. Fraiser and I exchange glances before acquiescing. We leave Daniel, helpless with pain and annoyed for being excluded, on the bed.

Kinsey stands with renewed confidence in the center of the cargo bay. Teal'c is obviously uninteresting in our discussion; he examines the foreign controls at the bridge. Outside the vast firmament of the universe shines. Kinsey holds the artifact at this side.

"I have determined how it works."

"Umm, okay, care to enlighten us?"

"Sacrifices must be made. But I'm sure you understand. How could you not. You lost her." He speaks feverishly, like he's hypnotized. Janet and I are bewildered by this sudden reversal from his self-assured manner of a few minutes ago. "But now you must find her. She cried for you. In her sleep. Now you will have to find her. Now you an bear my sacrifice."

Before either of us can react, he smoothly raises the weapon—I realize in the split seconds before I am struck that it must be a weapon—and fires.

My bones. Fire. My bones are splitting open, I can feel energy and fire shooting out from them. I'm imploding and exploding. I scream for death in my mind, and perhaps I do out loud as well. I don't know, I can only hear the ringing of my bones shattering. I cannot withstand this-this-this electricity much longer. I hit the ground.

In the moments before I lose consciousness completely, I hear Janet scream; Daniel cruses and tries to get out of bed; Teal'c shouts my name; his lumbering footsteps vibrate on the time floor against my ear; I feel him tackle Kinsey.

Yet about it all, before I succumb to whatever this is—it cannot be death, I figure, for this agony if far beyond death, for beyond anything a mind and spirit can handle for long—above it all rises a wild, crazed sound, like the deluge breaking through a dam, uncontrollable despite Teal'c's best attempts.

Kinsey is laughing.


End file.
